Industry giants including Amazon, Cisco, and GE are ramping up IoT services and business units. One medical electronics giant just finished a strategic plan for how it could connect its diverse systems, gathering data to create new services.

The Internet of Things is a fragmented collection of diverse markets, each with its own needs. They share a demand for sensors that cost $1 or less and consume next to zero power.

"The by-product of a trillion sensors is an abundance that will change the world for better -- we will live healthier and longer in a less polluted world," Bryzek said.

On a more personal level, Bryzek's company is preparing its own family of sensors, expected to roll out in 2014. And the entrepreneur foresees the possibility of the first billionaire in the microelectronic-mechanical systems (MEMS) in which most sensors are made.